The myth of negative Dean press coverage: NPR's adoring hourly report.

The day before the first caucus. The last poll has Kerry and Edwards in first and second. Everyone agrees it's a four-way race for first place. Which candidates are mentioned on NPR?

Dean.

Only Dean.

And it wasn't negative.

Seriously!

and yes, according to my local affiliate, they do it for me.

answering machine just for me.

Dean is getting bad press.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/01/13/dean_media/index.html

And you are telling me you haven't once heard, read, or seen a story regarding Dean's anger? Stories like this?

I actually argued the media was pro-Dean many months ago because he offered the better narrative. Oh well, it is all about perspective.

media was pro-Dean. But you think the media is negative now because...?

You know that report from the other day about anti-Dean media bias? The one funded by Scaife? It admitted his coverage has been getting better lately -- up 20% from his average for whatever period it wa measuring. Ie, the shorter the period, the bigger the swing towards positive stories for Dean.

They studies 187 stories, so that could have been two or three months only.

I just can see how that perception can be had.

I've never claimed the media was anti-Dean. The reports showing Dean has rec'd extra negative coverage was kind of enlightening.

explanation of methodology and said that Dean had more negative stories than his opponents "COMBINED." There was explanation for how they compared dean to a combination of 7 or 8 other candidates with dramatically different degrees of coverage. It is quite possible that if ANY candidate had a positive charactirization, that was marked as a positive story for the oponent. So Dean has one chance to be good or bad, but his oponents have seven chances to be good. So, 1 in 7 is good in any any given story, and suddenly there's anti-Dean bias?

The rest of the "proof" of bias is pretty easy to debunk. Just LISTEN to NPR.

Oh forget it. Density always defeats swiftness.

The reports showing Dean has rec'd extra negative coverage was kind of enlightening.

I was resonding to that.

Dean last July: he's angry.

Did you read post 17?

What was ABC News smoking? That's what a lot of people (including Mickey Kaus) are asking today after the network last night aired a piece on Howard Dean that was little more than a smear.

-snip-

Hmmm, I thought. That doesn't sound good. The spot functioned for me in the same subliminal way that advertising operates: On some level it contributed to a perception of Howard Dean as dishonest. It wasn't until I got into work today and read the transcript that I realized how absurd the story was. Of course few viewers exposed to the piece bothered to look closer at the story (and who can blame them -- I'm paid to do this!) That's how these stories do their damage.

ABC News ran a potentially destructive story that had no substance as news whatsoever. Which is exactly why people don't trust the news media in the first place.


Cheap Shot

Is it with Dean or with Democrats?

Did you know the CJR accepted for publication and then wouldn't print the article upon which this book was based because it would have offended the New York Times:

The Hearts of Darkness: How White Writers Created the Racist Image of Africa

Tell me, is there anything that would convince you? If not, I'm hiding this thread as useless.

...candidate who is actually running in IA tomorrow besides Dean?

How do you explain Dean getting over 20% of the time in that story?

Laugh it up.

Especially when people get all twisted over it.

I think you know that.

What is your hypothesis? What conditions prove the hypothesis false? What methodology are you going to use to test for falseness?

Harping on an NPR story is just silly. But knock yourself out.

If this is so silly, you'd have X'd this thread a long time ago.

your atttention. No?

put together. I'll post a graph that shows that later.

that's been undeservedly heaped upon Dean over the last few weeks.

Do you realize that you are actually trying to use a report on anti-Dean media bias to prove a pro-Dean media bias?

Doesn't that seem a bit over the top?

And if they're pretending that there has been an anti-Dean media conspiracy, then they're on the same page as the Dean campaign.

I have yet to see or hear a negative Dean story in any of the places where I get my news.

Care to cite a negative story for me?

the places where I get my news.


Where the hell do you live? I could use a nap.

Right?

11 million people get their news from NPR ever day, including me, and I have yet to hear a negative story on Dean.

Reread the origninal post in this thread and don't tell me you don't think this is a little odd.

"Former Vermont Governor..." the 4:46 minute hourly update begins. First minute on Dean. All nice. About him and Carter. Very nice.

I was wrong. They did mention another candidate. For 10 seconds they said Clark was skipping Iowa. Yes. The Skipper. Negative. What about Gepardt? Kerry? Edwards? Nope. Nope. And nothing.

All press coverage of Dean has been positive. I'm so lame I can't even come up with an example. :(

You've got reason to be pissed!

I can't believe how lame it was to cite that story as evidence of bad press.

That article's conclusion is that Dean is getting fair press...and a LOT of it.

He gets more coverage than Gep, Kerry and Edwards COMBINED!!!!

He earned it by building up his support over two years. The fact that Dean was drawing multiple thousands to his rallies when the others were drawing flies....is...are you ready?....NEWS!

The fact that he broke the all-time record for Dem fundraising...is...are you sitting down?...NEWS!


What were the others doing that was newsworthy a year+ before the election? Not much. And that explains the bulk of the coverage.


He gets more coverage than Gep, Kerry and Edwards COMBINED!!!!

The fact that Dean is "angry"...is not news! That's the other half of the news that the others weren't getting.

candidates might have helped him get support?

You know when attention started being paid to Dean? After Mara Liasson's LONG March feature on Dean on NPR. In it, she asserted all the themes about Dean which later attracted many of the people who love him now.

drawing hundreds to his rallies. It exploded when he was drawing thousands. Add a 15M quater and wham, you have a story.

Do I think that the other candidates were short-shrifted because of this? Absolutely.

Do I think they could have done something about it? Absolutely.

Draw larger crowds, receive more contributions = an even bigger story!



I went to see Dean having heard squat from Mara Liasson. With 8,000 other NPR listeners....I guess.


He got an unfair proportion of the media coverage. There was nothing else going on. I apologize if it wasn't fair but he did do something to earn the coverage. He also got an unfair proportioon of negative media coverage (whether you've heard it or not) due to that same phenomena. That's how the game works.

To deny that Dean did something to garner an unfair lion's share of the coverage is to bury your head in the sand. If Edwards was pulling 5,000 people to his rallies, he'd have been big news, too.

moment?

When did you go see him with 8K people?

Seattle June, 2003

1200 (which was huge at the time)
Seattle March, 2003


Drawing several hundred back East in late 2002/early 2003.(which was huge at the time)

curiously, NPR has taken this story off the audio archives, and now you'll need to buy the transcript if you want to hear it. But hear you go:


16 Profile: Howard Dean's presidential aspirations

March 11, 2003

BOB EDWARDS, host:

The prospect of war has become a big issue for Democratic presidential candidates. Among those candidates well-organized in Iowa, only one, physician and former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, is portraying himself as an opponent of the war. His position has given him some early momentum in the first-in-the-nation caucus state. NPR's national political correspondent Mara Liasson traveled in Iowa with Dean this past weekend, and has this report.

MARA LIASSON . . .

....a year-and-a-half before the election.


Guess what? That's a story.

How many were the others drawing? Tens. Maybe twenties.

Guess what? That's not a story.


It's pretty obvious to me.

NPR was reporting Kerry as the favorite in 2002.

Haven't seen over a 1,000 yet.


Is it NPR, or is it the candidate? Or is it the people?


We'll see tomorrow evening.

Or like he was Seabiscuit.

If I heard NPR plug that movie one more time, I was going to call up the studio and insist, for the sake of truth in advertising, the print advertising for that move say "brought to you by Time Warner and NPR"

...the sort of candidate who could both appeal to the polarized electorate's anger at bush, and who, because of that, couldnt' win a general election against Bush. That's why Liasson started feeding the public that message in March. That's why they propped him up with that message all summer.

The fact is, he's not getting bad press. He's getting press which gets his message out.

And NPR has gone so far that that they can't deign to mention any other Dem who is actually running tomorrow in their hourly report less than 18 hours before voting starts, and they give Dean a full 20% of friendly commentary, even though (or BECAUSE) he's in third place in the polls.

He capitalized on the anger towards Chimp. An opportunity, btw, that was out there for all the candidates.

As for NPR...how many Iowans are tucking themselves in bed to NPR tonight? I think there's plenty going on there right now. Dean's gonna lose, why worry? :shrug:

And it has way more credibility with most Democrats.

Control NPR and you control the minds of many Democrats.

Drive accross America and you can listen to NPR the entire drive. It doesn't stop at the Iowa border.

Why worry? Why worry about media bias? Because it's not going to stop. And the best way to fight it is to call it out.

Habikuk.

According to the media.

What extraordinary feats of camapigning have they done? :shrug:


And the best way to fight it is to call it out.

Habikuk.

they have messages which are resonating with the 300-500 Iowans who are showing up at each campaign stop to hear about it first hand. (Just don't expect to hear about it from NPR.)

About Dean:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/01/13/fineman/index_np.html

More:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=133419

Next thing you're going to tell me is that there's a media bias against Dems because Rush and Hannity are saying mean things.

It starts with this: Jodi Wilgoren has been the lead Times correspondent on Howard Dean's campaign plane since last summer. She was among the first national reporters to recognize the propulsive force of the Dean movement, in July, when she wrote a front-page article studded with phrases describing how the candidate ''burst from his obscurity to rank among the top contenders" and his ''stunning surge" in the fund-raising race; a subhead read, ''Standing Up for His Beliefs." People in the Dean campaign believe she's an excellent reporter. I've never met her, but as a faithful reader I think so, too.

That's what I found in seven weeks of intense coverage: one sentence; one picture; two headlines; and an overplayed story. I'm sure I missed some other questionable phrasings, but certainly not enough that could signify a pattern of behavior or betray a partisan agenda. It's true that many thoughtful Dean supporters have carefully dissected a variety of other pieces to reveal a tilt against Dean. But the tilt they identify is invariably a part of the story under examination. An article detailing what Dean's opponents perceive to be his weaknesses is legitimate news. All the "on the one hands" and "on the other hands" you could stuff into such a piece wouldn't dissipate the negative aura it necessarily emits. Individual articles may be rough on the candidate, but individual articles do not constitute coverage. What the paper does over time, through the long slog of a campaign, is what matters.

I have a suggestion for angry Deaniacs (including those who objected to reporter Todd Purdum's use of the term "Deaniacs" on Jan. 11, even though many of Dean's own supporters use the term themselves - see www.deaniacs.org. Think of a politician you dislike - maybe one of the Democrats Dean is battling - and substitute his name for Dean's in any piece about your man. If it still sounds unfair, there's the possibility it is. But without passing such a test, you're left not with ''an insult to our democracy," as one of my correspondents calls the paper's campaign coverage, but with journalism.

I think Jay Carson is right - the grass-roots activists Dr. Dean has inspired should absolutely make phone calls, write letters, hound public editors. But they have to recognize that the full-body physical their candidate has to endure is a sign of good fortune, the direct consequence of being in front. By my count (I did it quickly, so don't arrest me if I'm off by two or three), from Dec. 1 through this past Friday, The Times published 59 major stories or editorials about Dean. Wesley Clark has been up for view 30 times. No other candidate has enjoyed (or suffered) more than 20 appearances in the paper. Carol Moseley Braun got only three shots - and two of those were about her decision to leave the race.

Memo to Dean supporters: If you think it's rough when The Times has you under observation, be prepared to strap on your seat belts if he wins the nomination.

You know something that certain politicians for whom I'd never vote do? They think they can shout something enough times and that makes it true.

This "Dean is suffering from bad press" story, for me, is entering the pantheon of things that aren't true but if you say it enough ...

than the next candidate. Ie, the NYT has given Dean MORE coverage than the three people who are competing with him in Iowa, two of whom are polling higher than Dean in the last published poll.

You know who owns the Boston Globe -- the paper Kerry's ex-campaign manager called the nastiest paper ever to a home town candidate?

The New York Times.

Not mentioning Edwards, Kerry and Gephard the day before the Iowa caucus (when two of those three are leading Dean), and giving Dean a WHOLE minute (ie, over 20% of the entire segment), and then noting Clark's absense from Iowa is an anti-everyone but Dean, pro-Dean bias.

I know people have said here that Dean had Carter's endorsement but apparently they were mistaken.

Now there's increased scrutiny in general (no pun intended).

in the Iowa caucuses! I know you're glad and so am I. The last poll I saw had DK coming in fifth, which is excellent for a candidate who's been ignored and laughed at by the media.

Sadly, our media no longer try to give fair and equal coverage. Democrats need to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine ASAP.

Perhaps now he'll get to move up to the big leagues...

ABC: An Example of Abuse

He said that this is a four-way race and Fox news does not know who to smear...

Clark had a nice video appearance. Also moveon's Moby.

The imprimatur of legitimacy is where NPR gets its power.

I still can't believe they gave Dean a FULL minute, and Gep, Kerry and Edwards NOTHING.